Director Trisha Pancio Armour
Trisha has directed and assisted
on a number of Portland area productions including directing
The Rep's production of
Vanities and Assitant
Directing / Stage Managing their production of
Born Yesterday. She has
also directed Twelve Angry Men
and Brighton Beach Memoirs for
Mt Hood Rep's readers theatre series. Other
favorite projects include Under Milkwood for Ironclad Productions (Director),
Honey in the Horn and Nickel and Dimed for Artists Repertory Theatre
(Assistant Director) and The Carpetbaggers Children for The Portland
Civic Theatre Guild. In addition to her
creative work, Trisha is the Marketing and Audience Services Manager for
Artists Repertory Theatre. She also manages the love, care, and feeding of
Jack, (and Jack's daddy John).
About The Playwright
One of the most daring and inventive playwrights of her generation,
Lillian Hellman's own life was the stuff of drama. As Carl Rollyson
has written, "The key to Lillian Hellman's character, to what made her a
legend in her own time, was her sense of herself as a grande dame." Indeed,
Hellman is not only remembered for her work award-winning plays such as
The Children's Hour, The Little Foxes, and Watch on the Rhine
(for which she won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award in 1941) --
but for her audacious persona.
Lillian Florence Hellman was born in New Orleans on June 20, 1905,
the daughter of a shoe salesman. When she was five years old, her family
moved to New York. She studied at New York University (1922-24) and Columbia
University (1924), but did not earn a degree. In 1925, she began reviewing
books for the New York Herald Tribune, and by 1930, she was employed as a
script-reader by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Hollywood.
In the autumn of 1930, she met Dashiell Hammett with whom she would
remain intimate until his death in 1961. Hammett, a mystery writer and
author of The Maltese Falcon, reportedly suggested that she write a stage
adaptation of 'The Great Drumsheugh Case,' an episode from William Roughead's
Bad Companions which detailed the scandal at a Scottish boarding
school when a pupil accused two teachers of having a lesbain affair.
Hellman's adaptation, The Children's Hour (1934),
shocked and fascinated Broadway audiences, and
brought attention to the woman who would be known as "The American Strindberg."
Throughout her career, Hellman openly held left-wing political views and
was active in the campaign against the growth of fascism in Europe. As a result
of her well-known political views, she was subpoenaed to appear before the
House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952.
Hellman refused to be a friendly witness,
uttering her most famous line: "I cannot and will not cut my conscience to
fit this year's fashions." As a result of her defiance, Hellman's name was
added to Hollywood's blacklist and she was slapped with an unexpected and
unexplainable tax bill. Even worse, her partner, Dashiell Hammett, was
sentenced to prison for six months.
Hellman continued to write, adapting several works for the stage.
Almost a decade would pass before Hellman would write another completely
original work. Again, Hammett would suggest the theme. Toys in the Attic
opened in February 1960 with Jason Robards in the lead role, and won Hellman her
second New York Drama Critic's Circle Award. Hellman remained active throughout her
life. She taught creative writing classes at a number of universities, and
in her later years, she focused on several autobiographical works including
An Unfinished Woman (for which she won the National Book Award in 1970),
Pentimento, and Scoundrel
Time (an examination of Hellman's exeriences during the McCarthy Era).
She died of cardiac arrest on June 30, 1984, at her home in
Martha's Vineyard.
Sources:
Moonstruck Drama Bookstore
MSN Encarta
The St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture
Director Trisha Pancio Armour
